NCAA March Madness 2015 News, Preview: Kentucky Leads a 'Familiar Four'

Three of the four No. 1 seeds have made it to the NCAA men's basketball tournament Final Four, with the other one being an all too familiar perennial contender. The New York Times' Victor Mather calls them the Familiar Four, and he couldn't be more spot on.

There is no denying that despite the stacked Final Four cast that's left from the initial 68-team field, the Kentucky Wildcats, the first power conference to go undefeated in the regular season since Indiana accomplished the feat back in 1976, remain the hands down favorite to win it all.

They are now 38-0, and are back in their fourth Final Four in the last five years. They have the nation's most dominant backcourt with the freshman-junior pairing of Karl-Anthony Towns and Willie Cauley-Stein, but they also have a formidable opponent in the veteran-laden squad that is the Wisconsin Badgers, who are in the semifinals for the second straight year.

Senior Frank Kaminsky teamed up with junior Sam Dekker with 29 and 27 points, respectively, to edge Arizona in the tournament in back-to-back years, and figure to give Kentucky their toughest test yet, with pundits predicting the national champion to come from this matchup.

The third No. 1 seed in the group are the Duke Blue Devils, who are back in the Final Four since winning it all in 2010. They are up against the only non-No. 1 seed, the Spartans of Michigan State, who have had a long history of big dance overachievement, as noted by Mather.

The Blue Devils will bank on two sensational freshman, and potential NBA lottery picks Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow to build on their impressive run of winning 19 of their last 21 games.

But Tom Izzo's Spartans have shown enough resiliency throughout their run to the Final Four beating Georgia, Virginia, Oklahoma, and Louisville, leading up to their exciting matchup with Mike Krzyzewski's troops.

Both matchups are scheduled for April 4 at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, with the Duke-Michigan game slated to tip-off at 6:09 pm, while the Kentucky-Wisconsin tiff follows at 8:49 pm.